AI Creates A Creepy TMNT Movie Trailer With Middle-Aged Ninja Turtles
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are teens. It's right there in the name. To mess with their age is to mess with the entire concept and risk turning the whole cool, pizza-loving vibe into ... well, something completely different. "Saturday Night Live" explores this in its 2020 "Middle-Aged Mutant Ninja Turtles" skit, which is animated in the style of the 1987 "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" cartoon and peeks into the ennui-filled, Under Armor-wearing middle-aged lives of the four turtles and April O'Neil. YouTube channel Schrödinger's Film Club has taken things one step further with an AI-created movie trailer version that looks further into the lives of middle-aged turtles whose ninja days are long past them.
The clip is created around the idea of Judd Apatow making a "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie in his signature style. It focuses on the foursome's mundane middle-aged existence and makes clear that at least some of them miss their glory days as they reunite once last time to mourn their dead Master Splinter ... and to face an elderly Shredder one last time. The trailer contains several "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" details that'll leave you shouting "Cowabunga" but also enough sadness to underline that time hasn't been kind to the heroes in a half shell.
The AI trailer shows the turtles going their separate ways
The four heroes of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" are all different personalities, and the AI trailer keeps this in mind by imagining radically different middle-aged fates for them all. Leonardo is faithful to his streak as a responsible leader in a middle management job that he clearly hates but continues to endure for the sake of his family. Michelangelo has continued his impulsiveness by spending his days at the bar after a nasty divorce — possibly from April O'Neil, with whom he is unhappily married in the "Saturday Night Live" skit.
Meanwhile, the other two turtles operate from far stranger walks of life. Ever the inventor, Donatello has struck gold with an appropriately violent and pizza-themed infomercial product and is living a life of leisure. The hot-headed Raphael, on the other hand, has apparently become a far-right activist who's returned to the sewers to escape the consequences of his role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
Despite their wildly different lives, the turtles seem to fall right back into their old chemistry when they meet at Splinter's funeral. Still, it's clear that each of them — well, Donatello notwithstanding — has gone through a whole heap of trouble. As such, the trailer might advertise the non-existent film as a comedy, but the underlying sense of loss makes this imaginary version of "Middle-Aged Mutant Ninja Turtles" a strange midway point between the turtles' goofy teenage antics and "The Last Ronin," TMNT's darkest story.